


Inside and Out

by flowercrowncurls



Series: Broken [1]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Sad Michael, Scared Michael
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 01:35:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4687460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowercrowncurls/pseuds/flowercrowncurls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke sighs to himself, wiggles further down into the sand and closes his eyes because it’s easier to envision Michael’s smile and hear Michael’s laugh when he isn’t looking at the not-Michael Michael sitting beside him right now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inside and Out

There are stars in Luke’s eyes when he turns to look at Michael, mouth split into a smile as he tilts his head back. There is a melody in his laughter as it bubbles out from somewhere in the bottom of is throat, the middle of his chest. The sound pulls at Michael, shatters him and rips him up in the same second that it pieces all his broken bits back together. 

The sun is playing across the younger boy's features, highlighting the messy quiff of his blonde hair and the crystal depth of his blue blue eyes. Shadowing portions of his face in a way that leaves Michael much too close to breathless. He stares, its a thing he does a lot so Luke generally ignores it, he continues to stare as Luke just continues to laugh and laugh and laugh until eventually he's falling back into the warm sand and spreading his arms out wide laughter reaching up towards the sky. 

The echo of it shatters Michael’s bones. 

Michael chokes on nothing and everything, heart racing in his chest and he feels like he might actually vomit all over himself for a few long seconds. He forces himself to look away, neck snapping forcefully as he starts to shake, knuckles white as fingers squeeze harder where they’re curled into fists resting over the bend of his knees. Crescent indents forming on the palms of his hands as he squeezes tighter, breathing harder. 

Luke is still laughing, a soft tumbling sound that dips and gets carried away on the wind. Michael remembers better times, easier times, different times and he gets swept away in the tidal waves of memories that threaten to drag him under, pull him down. He suffocates on nothing. 

Michael stares at the crashing waves and wonders for a moment if he could get away with drowning himself, maybe if he wasn’t such a coward. And that’s the thing though, he is. 

He’s the world’s fucking biggest coward. 

And he’s sort of a phony as well, because he’s constantly acting like he’s not scared of everything while he’s sitting safely tucked away inside, away from prying eyes and moving mouths and pointed fingers. But out here, in the world, he’s terrified beyond belief. Every step outside his precious little bubble takes hours because he has to think it into the ground before he can even start to move, and every thought travels around and around inside his brain on an endless loop until eventually it makes a little bit of sense. 

But Luke - Luke is so unbelievably free that it leaves Michael grasping at the fraying edges of yesterdays and trying to keep up with Luke who is continuously hurling himself into the prospect and promises of tomorrows. Fearless Luke who just never stops moving forward, sprinting and laughing and spinning out of control. 

“Mikey?” 

Michael startles, some bizarre ugly embarrassing sound curls and bubbles from his throat as his cheeks bloom brighter. Shoulders dipping he peeks at Luke through his fringe and he doesn’t really know when it happened, when he started being this afraid of even Luke, “Yeah?” 

“Relax,” Luke says around a smile, teeth white and lips pink and eyes alight with something mischievous. Michael jerks his shoulders into something close enough to a shrug, his body is tense and thrumming with energy under the surface. He isn’t usually like this, usually he’s the put together one. Loud and obnoxious and maybe even funny - confident and talkative. 

But here, in the vast openness with so much unknown in front of him, he feels sort of like he’s flailing in deep water without a clue how to swim at all, barely managing to keep himself above the water as the waves slam into him over and over again. He feels like he’s drowning and looking at Luke here, open and smiling and laughing as the sun beats down and curls around the sharp angles of his face only makes that feeling grow stronger until Michael is panting behind the bend of his hand. 

He leans away from Luke, takes the few moments the boy is lost in the blaring sun above them to pull himself together. He breathes in and out and in and out, counts numbers and shuffles through the alphabet but everything sort of jumbles all together and tumbles around inside his brain. And he settles down while he tries to right his thoughts back in order, sorts through the scattered words and puts them into something resembling correct grammar before he opens his mouth. 

“Yeah,” Michael forces out finally, nodding his head a few times before he leans further away and stares at the waves again, watching as they lift and curl and crash back on themselves. “Yeah,” he repeats eyes boring in the blue of the sea and tries not to think of all the ways they remind him of Luke’s eyes. He gets so caught up in the crash of the waves he misses the way Luke’s face drops and pulls oddly as they boy frowns, peeking at Michael from beneath the curve of his long lashes. 

Luke sighs to himself, wiggles further down into the sand and closes his eyes because it’s easier to envision Michael’s smile and hear Michael’s laugh when he isn’t looking at the not-Michael Michael sitting beside him right now. The not-Michael that the world gets to witness, while his Michael is still locked up somewhere back in his room a million miles away on the other side of the ocean. His Michael that had blonde hair and soft eyes and unmarred pale skin. 

And this not-Michael. This fake. This imposter. It’s not the same, but it’s got to be enough because his Michael has long since been lost to the shine of bright stage lights and thousands of screaming fans and flashes that seem to blind just a little bit more every time they go off. 

Luke feels the burn of tears, the tightness as his throat closes up. And he has to close his eyes, has to draw up the image of his Michael just to breathe again. It won’t last, he knows, the moment he opens his eyes the image will shatter into a million pieces he can’t fix, but for just a second he can dream, and wish, and hope, and remember. 

He’ll always remember, every time he closes his eyes, he’ll remember.


End file.
